A Polish seafarer is reportedly scheduled to face trial next month in Colombia for allegedly throwing stowaways overboard, although the key accuser has given conflicting accounts of the incident.
Gnabasik Mieczslaw Henryk, 52, has been held by authorities in Santa Marta eight months ago on suspicion of attempted homicide, according to Colombia's leading newspaper, El Tiempo. The trial is set to begin 14 January.
The Polish-crewed Falcon
SMT spokesman Hans Anonsen says the company is not commenting on the matter publicly, so as to let the legal proceedings follwo their course.
Although media reports identify Henryk as the master of the Falcon, he is in fact an ordinary seaman on the ship.
Authorities began investigating the case after a fisherman found an exhausted 17-year-old Dominican teen on a beach near the northern city of Santa Marta.
The boy reportedly told the fisherman that he and two others had boarded the ship in the Dominican Republic in the hopes that it was bound for the United States. The trio was allegedly thrown overboard after they emerged from their hiding places, thinking the lights of Santa Marta were those of a US city, according to El Tiempo.
A 16-year-old boy and a 40-year-old man were never found.
But the Colombia naval commander for Santa Marta told El Universal newspaper in April that the surviving boy initially gave conflicting accounts, including one in which he said the stowaways were frightened and jumped off the Falcon.
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